Under the Willow Root

Chapter 23

"Mad Hatter: "Why is a raven like a writing-desk?"

"Have you guessed the riddle yet?" the Hatter said, turning to Alice again.

"No, I give it up," Alice replied: "What's the answer?"

"I haven't the slightest idea," said the Hatter"

--Alice In Wonderland

As soon as I accept that it's real, I see magic everywhere. It's like Sadra said. People--rich people, at least--use it for any little thing. I can't believe I never let myself see it. Sadra doesn't understand why it's such a big deal and doesn't believe me when I tell her it doesn't exist in my world. If it doesn't exist, she asks, why do we have a word for it? I don't know what to tell her.

When I ask if the waterfall is magic, though, Sadra laughs. Apparently the hills around the city are riddled with caves and tunnels. The waterfall does continue into a river, but underground. She says it comes out somewhere at the other end of the valley. I feel a little silly, but not much. I'm still in a state of awed shock over the whole thing.

I realize now that Sadra wasn't kidding when she told me about making Orean believe things by influencing his dreams. She's quick to correct me, though, when I ask if she uses Light to do it. It's not really magic, she says, but more of a gift. Everyone has a gift, though some people's are stronger or more spectacular than others'. Isemeni, she tells me, is a middling Catchsong. When my mistress sings, she truly does capture the audience's attention.

The difference, according to Sadra, is that gifts are something you're born with, something you do naturally. Light comes from an outside source. When I ask what that outside source is, she's reluctant to tell me. But I insist.

"Light comes from thralls," Sadra says, looking quickly at me to see how I react. I just stare at her. She continues hastily, "I don't know how or why. All I know--and everyone knows this--is that the mages of the House of Light and Shadows create thralls primarily as vessels for Light. Serving those who can afford them is only a secondary function. Let it never be said that the House let an opportunity for profit pass it by," she adds cynically.

"But I thought you said only rich people use Light," I say, frowning. "Almost everyone owns thralls."

"I said mostly," Sadra corrects me. "And anyway, Light itself doesn't belong to anyone. It's just there, like..well, like light. In a city like this, there are so many thralls that there's enough Light for anyone to use at any time--if you know how. Lessons are very expensive. Most people buy charms and such."

"That's what you meant when you told me thralls are made and not born," I realize.

"Exactly," Sadra says. "They're supposed to be just empty shells."

"And everyone believes that?" I shake my head disgustedly. "That's just...stupid. How could thralls do anything if they're empty? How does no one see that?"

"You didn't see Light for what it was and it was right under your nose for months," Sadra pointed out. "People see what they expect to see."

"And this House of Light and Shadow tells everyone what to expect," I say grimly.

Sadra nods. "I have a feeling that they do more than that. I think they must be getting rid of people who do get suspicious. It would explain a lot."

"What do you mean?"

"I hear a lot of gossip in my line of work," Sadra says. "And some of it is pretty disturbing. Sudden deaths, arrests for practically no reason at all. And I know of at least two people who supposedly went mad, but now I can't help but wonder..."

"That's scary," I say with a shiver.

"And Sasha..." Sadra hesitates, biting her lip pensively. "Orean has close ties to the House of Light and Shadow. He's at the House practically every other day, and the Premier has been at every one of Ismeni's dinner parties that I can remember. Orean's sister Cimari takes her lessons in casting from the First Mage himself. We can't let anyone get wind of what we're doing."

I gape at her. "How are we ever going to find anything out?"

"Carefully," Sadra says, hugging herself. "Very, very carefully."

Over the next few weeks, it becomes more and more of a struggle to keep my mask of neutrality in place. It drives me crazy that I can't do anything to further my own aims and that I have to rely wholly on Sadra. For the first time in more than a year of service, I feel like a slave. In the beginning, I think I wasn't really awake enough to feel much of anything. Even when I did begin to wake up, I behaved and thought of myself more like a model employee. Now that I have something I actually want to do, the fact that I can't do it makes my enslavement real in a way it never was before.

I do my best to behave myself, but it's hard. It's so hard, and it's made harder by Dove's growing weakness. I can't be seen to grieve or worry, because thralls don't have emotions any more complex than those of animals. This strikes me as cruelly ironic as Sadra says that the upper classes have that wrong, too--she says that there are Beastspeakers who feel what animals feel and speak their language, and they know that animals have plenty of complex emotions.

But thralls don't. Not even the Beastspeakers believe thralls can think for themselves or feel anything beyond the most basic drives. So I have to hide my concern behind a mask of bland, cheery helpfulness. My goal day in and day out is to be a golden retriever with opposable thumbs.

Sadra is as sympathetic as she can be, but after a while she loses patience with my moaning and insists on silence while we go through our exercises. She forbids any discussion of the matter unless one of us has new and useful information to share. Instead, each day we talk about cheerful, inconsequential things.

I can't stand it.